Wednesday, February 6, 2019

Bob Marley and identity politics

December 20, 2017 - "A few years ago, I spent two weeks in Jamaica [that included] the obligatory visit to the Bob Marley Museum. After touring the mansion, which once housed the headquarters of Marley’s Tuff Gong record label, we were ushered into a small movie theater to watch a brief documentary on the life of Bob Marley.... Marley said on camera something that surprised me; something that I had not known before.

“'My father was white and mother was black. Then call me half-caste or what ever. I don’t dip on nobody’s side. I dip on God’s side, the one who create me and cause me to come from black and white'....

"Marley’s words should give us much food for thought today, as the post-Trump environment has seemed to engender a new age of identity politics.... In the United States, we are faced with a situation where, politically, we are highly divided along racial lines.... Identity politics has exacerbated our differences, and the animosity that we feel along racial and geographic lines....

"The law is supposed to be color-blind; progressive groups routinely argue, however, that it is not. They likely have many reasonable enough points. Yet, is a nationwide lurch towards identity politics really the path forward for progress in America?

"It is time that Americans stop dividing themselves politically into groups and subgroups.... American politicians of both parties should be saying, 'What can we do, right now, that is good for America as a whole. For all Americans.' ... not dreaming up ways to offer political bargains to various identity politics groups in order to reach 51%. Good public policy, good fiscal policy, good monetary policy, well-written evenly-enforced law, is good for all Americans, regardless of race, class, ethnicity, language, religion, geography, or sexual orientation....

"Entrepreneurship, individuality, and social and economic freedom have always been at the heart of the impressive American success story. It is for that reason that millions of immigrants have sought a better [life] here. It is for that reason that hundreds of thousands still brave perilous sea crossings or hazardous desert treks to reach American soil, regardless of their immigration status.

"A free market economy does not inherently discriminate based upon these identity categories. The market doesn’t care about your sexual orientation, or your skin color, or your religion, or your language: it cares about the cost and quality of the good and service you provide....

"We can not change the past. What we can do now, is try to make public policy that will truly afford the greatest opportunities to all American citizens, regardless of their race or class, gender or ethnicity,"